Chelsea farewells Didier Drogba, its talisman and striker
Reminiscences carried him through some of the thunderous goals, tumultuous games, 10 leading trophies and a few regrets until, inevitably, we arrived at that climactic penalty against Bayern Munich to win the Champions League with the last kick of the match and, definitively, of his Chelsea career.
That moment of triumph was, he said, "like a movie", one that he wanted to keep replaying because the night itself flashed by so fast.
"I want to be back in the stadium," he said. "It was too quick the first time."
His whole remarkable journey from African poverty to the cover of Time magazine could be turned into a film, though Drogba paused when asked who should play the lead role. Then, with a big smile, he remembered: "Jupp Heynckes [the Bayern manager] said I'm a good actor. So maybe me."
Chelsea thought about weaning themselves off him a few times. Luiz Felipe Scolari told the board he wanted Drogba out. "At the time, there was a few moments in my head that I thought I would have to go," Drogba said yesterday of a time when he might have been swapped for Adriano.No one else would be up to the challenge of playing Drogba, certainly not for less than 40 million euros, which is the fee Chelsea will probably have to pay to replace him on the pitch. Across the world game, few big strikers have matched Drogba's influence in the past decade and perhaps none has shaped his team's style so singularly.
Then Andre Villas Boas, whom he still calls "a friend", tried to shift the team away from their reliance on Drogba. Back they came every time to relying on the big man, never more so than on Saturday night, when he did more than anyone to secure Chelsea's historic victory.
"A few months ago, even a few weeks, I would have described this season as the worst of my Chelsea career," he said. "In football things can change in a second. From the worst season we got to the best ever."
So how to replace him? For all his kind words about Fernando Torres yesterday - "Chelsea is in good hands with Fernando. Of course we will need new strikers but Torres will do the job, he will do it" - it will not be cheap or easy.
To think that a fee of 24 million pounds to bring Drogba from Marseilles was questioned in 2004 by an owner who had his heart set on more celebrated names. Yesterday, relaxing in a James Dean T-shirt with crucifix dangling from his neck, Drogba recalled the attraction of signing for the manager he still adores, Jose Mourinho.
"As a human being and as a player I learnt a lot from him," Drogba said. "He gave me strength. He gave me this winning attitude, this desire to make history. He's a winner and we have it now in our DNA. It would have been nice to win the Champions League for him. We tried so many times."
As far as Drogba is concerned, Mourinho has a share of Saturday's trophy even if he left Stamford Bridge in 2007.
Drogba also talked of the transformation of the club by the man he calls simply "the boss": Roman Abramovich.
"You go to Africa and people speak about Chelsea," he said. "I see kids wearing shirts in the streets in India, everywhere. Chelsea is a big brand and we are very proud to have achieved this."
He talked of the biggest disappointment as that "ghost goal" defeat by Liverpool in the Champions League semi-finals in 2005, when Chelsea were at their seemingly unstoppable peak, and of the 2009 rant at a Norwegian referee that stirred so much resentment.
"It is only football," Drogba said, "but sometimes we attach too much importance to it, as I did that day. I'm not saying I was right to do it, or that I would do it again, but I had something in my head and I wanted to achieve the win so much that when it went wrong, the emotions got the better of me."
What, too, of the warrior striker who writhes around on the floor? Drogba claimed a slow adaptation to different cultures. "Today people can see I am not that person they thought I was in the beginning," he said.
Over eight years we have seen the many contradictory sides of Didier Yves Drogba Tebily, just as he laughed yesterday at some of the "crazy things" he has seen in the Chelsea dressing room, from managers jumping in laundry baskets to the work experience being shot.
There is the striker who has caused howls of outrage for feigning but is also a UN Ambassador. Drogba also runs an active foundation doing good work back in Ivory Coast, funded by the salaried wealth passed down from the boss. "Maybe he [Abramovich] doesn't know, but he helped a lot of people," he said.
When player and owner spoke over the past few days to confirm his departure, Abramovich told his striker: "You will be a Chelsea player forever."
"My blood is blue," Drogba replied. Asked if he would love to come back as manager one day, he said: "Yes, why not. I would come back and cut the grass if they asked me." Knowing Drogba, he would make it worth watching, too. Chelsea have lost not just a great striker but a talismanic presence.
The Times
